The tiny frame of my cousin Anita appears in the doorway, a wide smile splitting her face. Her voice sounds like dripping honey, sweet and pure southern. I get a look at her face and can’t hold back my smile.
“I’m here! The drive took a bit longer than I thought.” She fully appears in the doorway and I take it back. My cousin is no longer tiny. She’shuge. Pregnant and huge. “Oh my god. Look at you!”
“Right?” she says rubbing her belly. “I look like I swallowed a beach ball.”
“You’re adorable.”
“Ugh, I don’t know about that, but I’m definitely knocked up.”
“Stop, you know you want this baby.”
She smiles again. “You know it. Sibley needs a brother or sister. She’s spoiled rotten.”
“I can’t believe you didn’t find out the sex.” My cousin is nosy as hell—she wants to know everything about everyone.
“It’s the one thing in life we can’t predict. I respect that.” She leans against the door jamb. “I mean, I totally know it’s going to be another girl. It’s just a feeling.”
“And what does Bobby think about that?” Bobby is Anita’s husband and Justin’s brother.
“Oh, he’s convinced it’s a boy, but he thought that about Sibley too. He has no intuition.”
“Well, I’m just glad we get to spend the summer together before he or she comes.”
“Thank god. I’ve been bored out of my mind with all of you away at college. I’m ready for a summer of fun…you know, with you...Summer.” We laugh at the name my mother gave me. A testimony to her love of the place she spent all her childhood and teenaged vacations. Last year, I learned Ocean Beach was in our blood. Not only did our family live here but so did a deep part of our history—my mother’s history with Richard, her high school sweetheart, and her narrow escape from Donald Gaskins, South Carolina’s most prolific serial killer.
“How’s Sugar?” I ask. Sugar is Anita’s mom and my mother’s cousin and best friend.
“Good. She’s been following the news about your mother day-in and day-out. Biggest fan.”
“I’m so glad they made up.”
“Me too. You talk to your mom lately?”
“Yeah,” I say. “On the way down. She gave me a million instructions about how to handle the shop.”
My mother--apparently at a loss of what to do while her book was in edits--decided to open a book store in Ocean Beach. She came up with the not-so-clever title Books by the Beach, and stocked it full of new releases, favorites, local authors, and of course, her books. In the back, she made a cozy office where she can write. Anita’s been working in the front now that her daughter, Sibley, is in preschool. Now that I’m here, I’ll be working, too.
“Don’t worry,” Anita says, digging into the small bag of food and supplies that I brought and sorting them on the counter. “She does that to me, too. Constantly. I mean, she’s had this store for less than a year but suddenly she knows everything about book stores?” She rolls her eyes and I laugh.
“Welcome to the world of Julia Barnes. There’s no half-assing anything.”
It’s Monday in mid-May and the store is closed, which is why Anita is here now. Once the busy season starts, we’ll be open seven days a week. She puts away the items that need refrigerating. “So, have you been down to the marina yet?”
“No. I wanted to unpack first.”
“How are things with…everyone?”
‘Everyone’ means the guys. The Boys of Ocean Beach.Myboys. My ears warm at the mention of the guys. “Good. We made it through the school year. It was challenging sometimes, but we managed to see each other and visit. I went down to the Citadel for a football game to watch Nick. Justin and Richard came up to Tennessee for Thanksgiving. I went to a winter formal with Whit, which was really fun. Seeing him in his formal uniform was…wow.”
“I bet.” Her eyes glaze a little, a testament of Whit’s hotness. “Pete told me about Nashville—he loved it.”
I smile. “He was in heaven. I took him to a few country bars—did the whole Ryman and Opryland tours. He was like a kid in a candy shop.”
“So, you successfully navigated and balanced four boyfriends?”
“Yeah, somehow I did, although I know good and well that we’ll have different challenges being in one place—one very small place—all together.” I sit on the small bench built in the wall behind the table. “Last summer everything was so new and exciting—we were just having fun. Over the school year, I think it became a bit more.”
“You think you guys can last? All together?”
